Today Olin College of Engineering recognized Boston Scientific with its Outstanding Corporate Sponsor Award. A pioneer in transforming engineering education, Olin relies heavily on corporate collaborators to provide students with real-life experiences. An international leader in medical devices, Boston Scientific is a founding sponsor of the college’s highly regarded senior capstone program called SCOPE (Senior Capstone Program in Engineering). Olin’s longest standing SCOPE collaboration with Boston Scientific has resulted in five issued patents and four pending patents, involving thirty-three undergraduates in 16 projects over the course of 11 years.

“Olin came on the scene as a small unknown college with a mission to create a transformative educational experience for undergraduate engineers with a focus on solving real problems,” said Olin President Rick Miller. “Boston Scientific, a prolific innovator with more than 13,000 products, understood our vision and has been an important ally in our success.”

At a ceremony during SCOPE Summit, in which teams of seniors gave short, high-energy verbal presentations called “Rocket Talks” and presented posters on their year-long industry projects, President Miller presented Paul Aquilino, Senior Manager of Research & Development, the award, noting that over the years Boston Scientific has also been a major employer of Olin graduates.

SCOPE is a unique industry-university collaboration, and the culminating experience of an Olin student's education. Over the course of a full academic year, seniors work in multi-disciplinary teams to provide innovative solutions to a company’s real-world problems. Notably, sponsors retain full rights to all intellectual property developed by the team. This year’s SCOPE sponsors include: Aerodyne, Amazon Robotics, Auris Surgical Robotics, Blue Origin, Boston Scientific, Dassault Systemes SolidWorks, Draper Laboratories, Fidelity Labs, Insulet Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric, Raytheon, Rockwell Automation and Santos Family Foundation.

From the first SCOPE program in 2006 to today, Olin students have worked with Boston Scientific staff on a variety of less invasive techniques in surgery and diagnosis for the gastrointestinal track and lungs, including: developing novel treatments for pancreatic lesions, biomedical applications for a novel polymer, and design of an anti-migratory esophageal stent.

“SCOPE is a win-win experience for everyone involved,” said SCOPE Director and Associate Professor Alisha Sarang-Sieminski. “Students are able to integrate their three years of project-based engineering experience into solving a concrete challenge and sponsors receive some of the freshest and most innovative thinking in engineering.”